One morning in the late summer of 1930 the proprietor and several guests at the Union Hotel at Crestcrego, Texas, were annoyed to discover Biblical texts freshly written across the blotter on the public writing-desk. Two days later the guests at McCarty’s Inn, Usquepaw, in the same state, were similarly irritated, and the manager of the Gem Theater nearby was surprised to discover that a poster at his door had been defaced and trampled upon. The same evening a young man passing the First Baptist Church, and seeing that the Annual Bible Question Bee was in progress, paid his fifteen cents and, taking his place against the wall, won the first prize, his particular triumph being the genealogical tables of King David. The next night, several passengers on the Pullman car “Quarritch,” leaving Fort Worth, were startled to discover a young man in pajamas kneeling and saying his prayers before his berth. His concentration was not shaken when he was struck sharply on the shoulder by flying copies of the Western Magazine and Screen Features. The next morning a young lady who had retired to the platform of the car to enjoy a meditative cigarette after breakfast, returned to her seat to discover that a business card had been inserted into the corner of the window pane. It read:
George Marvin Brush, Representing the Caulkins Educational Press. New York, Boston, and Chicago. Publishers of Caulkins’ Arithmetics and Algebras, and other superior textbooks for school and college. Across the top of the card the following words had been neatly added in pencil: Women who smoke are unfit to be mothers. The young lady reddened slightly, tore the card into flakes and pretended to go to sleep. After a few moments she sat up and, assuming an expression of weary scorn, looked about the car. None of the passengers seemed capable of such a message, least of all a tall, solidly built young man whose eyes, nevertheless, were gravely resting on her.
This young man, feeling that he had made his point, picked up his briefcase and went forward to the smoking-car. There almost every seat was filled. The day was already hot and the smokers, having discarded coat and collar, lay sprawled about in the blue haze. Several card games were in progress, and in one corner an excitable young man was singing an interminable ballad, alternately snapping his fingers and stamping his heel to mark the beat. An admiring group was gathered about him, supplying the refrain. Congeniality already reigned in the car and remarks were being shouted from one end of it to the other. Brush looked about him appraisingly, and chose a seat beside a tall leather-faced man in shirt sleeves.
“Sit down, buddy,” said the man. “You’re rocking the car. Sit down and lend me a match.”
“My name is George Brush,” said the younger man, seizing the other’s hand and looking him squarely and a little glassily in the eye. “I’m glad to meet you. I travel in school books. I was born in Michigan and I’m on my way to Wellington, Oklahoma.”
“That’s fine,” said the other. “That’s fine, only relax, sonny, relax. Nobody’s arrested you.”
Brush flushed slightly and said, with a touch of heaviness, “In beginning a conversation I like to get all the facts on the table.”
“What did I tell you, buddy?” said the other, turning a cold and curious eye on him. “Relax. Light up.”
“I don’t smoke,” said Brush.
The conversation did the rounds of the weather, the crops, politics, and the business situation. At last Brush said:
“Brother, can I talk to you about the most important thing in life?”
The man slowly stretched out his full lazy length on the reversed seat before him and drew his hand astutely down his long yellow face. “If it’s insurance, I got too much,” he said. “If it’s oil wells, I don’t touch ’em, and if it’s religion, I’m saved.”
Brush had an answer even for this. He had taken a course in college entitled “How to approach strangers on the subject of Salvation”—and two and a half credits—generally followed the next semester by “Arguments in Sacred Debate”—one and a half credits. This course had listed the openings in such an encounter as this and the probable responses. One of the responses was this, that the stranger declared himself already saved. This statement might be either (1) true, or (2) untrue. In either case the evangelist’s next move was to say, with Brush:
“That’s fine. There is no greater pleasure than to talk over the big things with a believer.”
“I’m saved,” continued the other, “from making a goddam fool of myself in public places. I’m saved, you little peahen, from putting my head into other people’s business. So shut your damn face and get out of here, or I’ll rip your tongue out of your throat.”
This attitude had also been foreseen by the strategists. “You’re angry, brother,” said Brush, “because you’re aware of an unfulfilled life.”
“Now listen,” said the other, solemnly. “Now listen to what I’m saying to you. I warn you. One more peep of that stuff and I’ll do something you’ll be sorry for. Now wait a minute! Don’t say I didn’t warn you: one more peep—”
“I won’t trouble you, brother,” said Brush. “But if I stop, don’t think it’s because I’m afraid of anything you’d do.”
“What did I tell you,” said the man, quietly. He leaned over, and picking up the briefcase that was lying between Brush’s feet, he threw it out of the window. “Go and get it, fella, and after this learn to pick your man.”
Brush rose. He was smiling stiffly. “Brother,” he said, “it’s lucky for you I’m a pacifist. I could knock you against the roof of this car. I could swing you around here by one leg. Brother, I’m the strongest man that was ever tested in our gym back at college. But I won’t touch you. You’re rotted out with liquor and cigarettes.”
“Haw-haw-haw!” replied the man.
“It’s lucky for you I’m a pacifist,” repeated Brush, mechanically, staring at the man’s eyes, the yellow strings of his throat, and the blue stain his collar button had left.
By now the whole car was interested. The leather-faced man threw his arm over the back of the seat and included his neighbors in his pleasure. “He’s nuts,” he said.
Voices in the car began to rise in a threatening tide: “Get the hell out of here.” . . . “Put him out.”
Brush shouted into the man’s face: “You’re full of poisons—Anybody can see that. You’re dying. Why don’t you think about it?”
“Haw-haw-haw!” said the man.
The noise in the car rose to a roar. Brush went down the aisle and entered the toilet. He was trembling. He put his hand on the wall and laid his forehead against it. He thought he was going to throw up. He muttered over and over again, “He’s rotten with liquor and cigarettes.” He gargled a mouthful of cold water. When his breathing had become regular again, he returned to the car “Quarritch.” He walked with lowered eyes and, sitting down, he held his head in his hands and stared at the floor. “I shouldn’t hate anybody,” he said.
The train reached Wellington an hour later. Brush went to the hotel, engaged an automobile, and retrieved the briefcase. He spent the day calling on the department heads in the high school. On coming out of the dining-room after dinner he went to the writing-desk, printed a Bible text neatly on the blotter, and went early to bed.
The next morning brought his twenty-third birthday. He rose early and started to leave the hotel for a walk before breakfast. In one hand he held a rough draft of his resolutions for the year, along with a list of his virtues and faults. As he passed through the lobby he noticed that a fresh blotter had been placed on the writing-desk. He went up to it, took out his fountain pen, and stood a moment irresolute. Then without sitting down he printed across the top the words, “Thou, Lord, seest me.”
A negro who was crouched on the floor, polishing spitoons, raised his eyes slowly and said, with guarded animosity: “You’d better not write on that blotter. Mr. Gibbs is awful mad about that. He’s had to change it once already and he’s awful mad.”
“Does it do any harm to anybody?” asked Brush, calmly, returning the pen to his pocket.
“The folks don’t like it. Mr. Blodgett, who’s stayin’ here, ’s all roused up.”
“Well, tell Mr. Blodgett to speak to me about it. I’d like to meet him,” replied Brush, crossing to the water-cooler and starting to draw himself a drink of water. At that moment the manager of the hotel came down the stairs, followed by a man and a woman. The man was short and fat; he had a round red face and a pair of mobile black bushy eyebrows. He crossed the room to the writing-desk and picked out a piece of stationery.
“Look’t this!” he cried, suddenly, pointing at the blotter. “Look’t this! Now that’s the second time. God! it gives me a pain.”
“You can’t stop’m, Mr. Blodgett,” said the manager, sadly. “Why, last year, there was a fellow—”
“Well, I’d like to meet one. I’d like to tell’m what I think.”
The manager whispered a few words to Blodgett and indicated Brush with his thumb.
Blodgett whistled. “You don’t say!” he said.
The woman interposed loudly: “Now Reme, you’re always picking up some crazy galoot or other. You’ll get into trouble one of these days. Come in to breakfast and let’m be.”
“Well, sister, you gotta have some fun when you’re on the road, don’t you?” said Blodgett. “This is a chance. Watch me now.”
As Brush started to go to the street Blodgett put out his hand. “Say, buddy,” he said, quietly, one eyebrow subtly raised, “where are you holding meetings?”
“I’m not holding any meetings,” replied Brush, seizing his hand and looking dynamically into his eyes. “I think your name is Blodgett. Mine is George Brush. George Marvin Brush. I travel in textbooks. Glad to know you, Mr. Blodgett.”
“Yes, sir, every time,” said Blodgett. “Doremus Blodgett, Everlast Hosiery. So you travel, do you?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, what’s the idea of writing all over these blotters? You’re young and healthy. See what I mean?”
“I’m glad to talk about it,” said Brush.
“That’s the way. Now look here, Brush. I’m glad to see you’re a reasonable fella. We were afraid you were going to be one of these faynatics. See what I mean? Brush, I want you to meet the finest little girl in the world, my cousin, Mrs. Margie McCoy.”
“Glad to know you,” said Brush.
Mrs. McCoy had a large puffy face heavily covered with powder. It was surmounted by a fine head of orange, brown, and black hair. She did not acknowledge the introduction.
“Fella to fella,” continued Blodgett, “What’s the idea of writing over all these blotters, eh? I don’t say it isn’t all right for preachers. They get paid for it.”
“Mr. Blodgett, I’ve found a good thing and I want to tell everybody about it.”
“Let’m be, Reme. Let’m be,” said Mrs. McCoy, beckoning her cousin toward the dining-room door with jerks of her head and the movements of her sullen eyes.
“Well, I don’t like it,” continued her cousin, suddenly belligerent.
“If you don’t like it,” continued Brush, “that’s because you’re aware of an unfulfilled life.”
Blodgett began to shout. “That’s the trouble with you stinking reformers, you think everybody——”
Here Margie McCoy flung herself between them: “Have some breakfast first, for Gawd’s sake! Now stop it! Stop it, I say! You’re always trying to get into a fight. Besides, the doctor told you you gotta keep calm.”
“I don’t fight, Mrs. McCoy,” said Brush. “Let him say what he wants to say.”
Blodgett began again in a calmer tone. “I don’t say it isn’t all right for preachers, but what gripes me is when some . . . Goddam it! everything has its place.”
“Aw, come on and get some cawfee,” said Mrs. McCoy, adding, under her breath: “He’s just a nut. Let’m be.”
“Say, why aren’t you a preacher, anyway? Why aren’t you in a church, where you belong?”
“There’s a reason for that,” replied Brush, staring fixedly at the wall behind Blodgett.
“Couldn’t you get enough money?”
“No, that wasn’t the trouble. . . . I had a very personal reason.”
“Stop right there!” cried Blodgett. “I don’t want to hear anything that’s not my business. All I say is that it looks to me like you had a still more personal reason for going in.”
Brush stared at him somberly. “I’m not afraid to tell,” he said. “I did something . . . I did something that a minister can’t do.”
“Oh, I see!” said Blodgett, out of his depths. “Well . . . of course, that makes a difference.”
“What did he say?” asked Mrs. McCoy.
“He said . . . he did something that a minister can’t do.” Then turning to Brush, Blodgett took on a conspiratorial air; lowering his voice, he inquired, “What was it?”
“I wouldn’t like to tell that with a lady here,” said Brush.
Blodgett raised his eyebrows and whistled compassionately: “Ain’t that terrible! There’s a woman in it, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Tchk-tchk-tchk! You know you ought to marry the poor girl.”
Brush looked at him sharply. “Of course I want to marry her. Only I can’t find her.”
“I gotta get out of here,” cried Margie McCoy, abruptly. “I’m going cuckoo. Let’m be, Reme. He’s crazy. He’s nuts,” and she hurried into the dining-room.
Blodgett’s manner took on the hushed and prudent manner he would have assumed had Brush informed him that he was talking to Napoleon. “Say, ain’t that terrible! How did it happen?”
“I’d rather not talk about it,” said Brush.
Blodgett asked some questions about the road and about business conditions in Texas. Then he said: “How about coming up to the room tonight, eh?—little talk?”
“I’d like to, but I’m leaving this morning for Oklahoma City.”
“What? We’ll be there tomorrow. Where do you put up, boy?”
It seemed that they both planned to stay at the McGraw House and a meeting was planned for the following evening. “Good! About eight, see? Come up to the room and have a little drink.”
“I don’t drink, but I’d like a little talk.”
“Oh, you don’t drink?”
“No.”
“Sure, I realize it’s against the law,” said Blodgett, generously.
“It undermines the nervous system and impairs the efficiency,” added Brush.
“Damn it, you’re right. You’re right. I’m going to stop it one of these days. You never said a truer word. But you won’t mind if the little lady and I have something while you’re there?”
“No.”
Mrs. McCoy appeared at the door. “Reme, you come here,” she cried. “Come here. He might shoot or something.”
“Marge, what do you mean, shoot. He’s all right. He’s a fine fella.” He slapped Brush on the back, then lowering his voice, added, confidentially: “No ill-feelings, see? The little girl’s always that way when you first know her.”
Blodgett winked intimately and followed his cousin in to breakfast.
Brush left the hotel and walked down the street in the shade of the cottonwood trees. He listened enviously to the domestic sounds that came from the houses to his right and his left. Housewives were shaking rugs out of windows or shifting saucepans upon a stove. Children were heard calling in shrill voices, every sentence beginning and ending with a querulous “Ma.” A few men had taken advantage of the early coolness and were cutting the lawn; others were flinging open the doors of their garages and casting a first reassuring glance at their car. At the edge of town Brush left the road and followed a path through some deep grass; passing some rubbish-heaps and a deserted sawmill he came upon a clear stream that, flowing rapidly, seemed to carry a load of tangled weeds towards a pond. He lay down beside the pond, face downward, and gazed at the scene. Two water snakes glided by, weaving in and out of each other’s shadow. In the middle of the pond a turtle, with two small turtles on her back, climbed out upon a rotting plank. More turtles followed and, settling themselves squarely, drew their heads partly into their shells and closed their eyes. The very bird calls announced a hot day.
Brush had come out to think. This was his twenty-third birthday, and birthdays were solemn occasions for him. Two years before he had risen up from a swinging hammock on his father’s porch, had crossed the town of Ludington, Michigan, and proposed marriage to a widow ten years older than himself. He had been refused, but he never forgot the exhilaration of having done it, nor the look in her eyes as she stood drying her hands on her apron, while her children crawled about on the floor, untying his shoestrings. One year before he had spent the evening in the Public Library at Abilene, Texas, reading the life of Napoleon in the Encyclopædia Britannica. When he finished he had taken a pencil from his pocket and written in the margin, “I am a great man, too, but for good,” and had signed his initials. The perspiration had stood out on his forehead.
And now before the pool near Wellington, Oklahoma, he prepared to examine himself on his twenty-third birthday. Tremendous were the good resolutions adopted that morning. It was to be a great year. He never forgot the solemnity of that hour, even though, at the end of it, still on an empty stomach, he fell asleep.
As a result of one of the decisions made by the pool near Wellington, Brush found himself towards noon on the same day in Armina, forty miles away, whither he had come to draw his savings from a bank in that town. The bank consisted of one big room, high and well lighted, with a pen in the middle, walled in with a show of marble and of bright steel gratings. Beside the door the president sat in his smaller pen, filled with despair. Short of a miracle his bank had little over a week to live. Banks had been failing all through these states for months, and now even this bank, which had seemed to him to be eternal, would be obliged to close its doors.
Brush glanced at the president, but, resisting the temptation to go and talk to him, went to a desk and, drawing out his bankbook, made out a slip. He presented himself at the cashier’s window.
“I’m closing up my account,” he said. “I’ll draw out everything except the interest.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’ll take out the money,” he repeated, raising his voice as though the cashier were deaf, “but I’ll leave the interest here.”
The cashier blinked a moment, then began fumbling among his coins. At last he said, in a low voice, “I don’t think we’ll be able to keep your account open for so small a sum.”
“You don’t understand. I’m not leaving the interest here as an account. I don’t want it. Just return it back into the bank. I don’t believe in interest.”
The cashier began casting distraught glances to right and left. He paid out both sum and interest across the grating, mumbling: “I . . . the bank . . . you must find some other way of disposing of the money.”
Brush took the five hundred dollars and pushed the rest back. He raised his voice sharply and could be heard all over the room saying, “I don’t believe in interest.”
The cashier hurried to the president and whispered in his ear. The president stood up in alarm, as though he had been told that a thief was entering the vaults. He went to the door of the bank and stopped Brush as he was about to leave.
“Mr. Brush?”
“Yes.”
“Might I speak to you for a moment, Mr. Brush? In here.”
“Certainly,” said Brush, and followed him through a low gate into the presidential pen. Mr. Southwick had a great unhappy sheep’s head rendered ridiculous by a constant fluttering adjustment of various spectacles and pince-nez and black satin ribbons. His professional dignity reposed upon an enormous stomach supported in blue serge and bound with a gold chain. They sat down on either side of this monument and gazed at one another in considerable excitement.
“Mm . . . mm . . . ! You feel you must draw out your savings, Mr. Brush?” said the president, softly, as though he were inquiring into an intimate hygienic matter.
“Yes, Mr. Southwick,” replied Brush, reading the name from a framed sign on the desk.
“. . . And you’re leaving your interest in the bank?”
“Yes.”
“What would you like us to do with it?”
“I have no right to say. The money isn’t mine. I didn’t earn it.”
“But your money, Mr. Brush—I beg your pardon—your money earned it.”
“I don’t believe that money has the right to earn money.”
Mr. Southwick swallowed. Then in the manner he had once used while explaining to his daughter that the earth was round, he said: “But the money you deposited here, that money has been earning money for us. The interest represents those profits, which we share with you.”
“I don’t believe in profits like that.”
Mr. Southwick edged his chair forward and asked another question: “Mm . . . mm . . . ! May I ask why you have thought it best to withdraw your money at this time?”
“Why, I’m glad to tell you, Mr. Southwick. You see, I’ve been thinking about money and banks a lot lately. I haven’t quite thought the whole matter through yet—I’ll be able to do that when my vacation comes in November—but at least I see that for myself I don’t believe in saving money any more. Up till now I used to believe that you were allowed to save some money—like five hundred dollars, for instance, for your old age, you know, or for the chance your appendix burst, or for the chance you might get married suddenly—for what people call a rainy day; but now I see that’s all wrong. I’ve taken a vow, Mr. Southwick; I’ve taken the vow of voluntary poverty.”
“Of what?” asked Mr. Southwick, his eyes starting out of his head.
“Of voluntary poverty, like Gandhi. I’ve always followed it somewhat. The point is to never have any money saved up anywhere. Do you see?”
Mr. Southwick mopped his forehead.
“When my pay check comes every month,” continued Brush, earnestly, “I immediately give away all money that’s left over from the month before, but I always knew that at bottom that wasn’t honest. Honest, with myself, I mean, because all this time I had five hundred dollars hidden away in this bank here. But from now on, Mr. Southwick, I won’t need any banks. You see, the fact that I had this money here was a sign that I lived in fear.”
“Fear!” cried Mr. Southwick. He rapped the bell on his desk so hard that it crashed to the floor.
“Yes,” said Brush, his voice rising as the truth became clearer to him. “No one who has money saved up in a bank can really be happy. All the money locked up here is being saved because people are afraid of a rainy day. They’re afraid, as they say, that worst may come to worst. Mr. Southwick, may I ask if you’re a religious man?”
Mr. Southwick was deacon in the First Presbyterian Church and had passed a red velvet collection bag for twenty years, but at this question he jumped as though he had been struck sharply in the ribs. A clerk approached him. “Go out at the corner and get Mr. Gogarty at once,” he commanded, hoarsely. “Get him at once!”
“Then you know what I’m talking about,” continued Brush. His voice could now be heard throughout the hall. Clerks and depositors had stopped what they were doing and were listening in consternation. “There is no worst coming to worst for a good man. There’s nothing to be afraid of. To save up money is a sign that you’re afraid, and one fear makes another fear, and that fear makes another fear. No one who has money in banks can really be happy. It’s a wonder your depositors can really sleep nights, Mr. Southwick. There they lie, wondering what’ll happen to them when they get old and when they get sick and when banks have troubles—”
“Stop it! Stop what you’re saying!” cried Mr. Southwick, very red in the face. A policeman entered the bank. “Mr. Gogarty, arrest this man. He’s come here to make trouble. Get him out of here at once.”
Brush faced the policeman. “Arrest me,” he said. “Here I am. What have I done? I haven’t done anything. I’ll tell the judge. I’ll tell everybody what I’ve been saying.”
“Come on along. You come on quiet.”
“You don’t have to push me,” said Brush. I’m glad to come.”
He was taken to the jail.
“My name is George Marvin Brush,” he said, seizing the warden’s hand.
“Take your dirty hand away,” said the warden. “Jerry, get the fellow’s prints.”
Brush was led into another room to record his fingerprints and to be photographed.
“My name’s George M. Brush,” he said, seizing the photographer’s hand.
“How are yuh?” said the other. “Glad to see yuh. My name’s Bohardus.”
“I didn’t catch it,” said Brush, politely.
“Bohardus—Jerry Bohardus.”
Jerry Bohardus was a retired policeman with a kindly disposition and a dreamy, fumbling manner. A shock of long gray hair fell into his eyes. “Kindly step up in front of this glass table for me,” he said. “It’s fine weather we’re having.”
“Oh, fine,” said Brush. “It’s fine, outside.”
“Now put your hand down lightly on this pad, Mr. Brown. That’s the ticket. That’s right. That’s fine.” He lowered his voice and added, confidentially: “Don’t feel badly about this business, Mr. Brown. It’s just a form we gotto go through, see? It don’t mean anything. They send these here prints to Washington, where there are eighty-five thousand others; some of them belong to sheriffs and mayors, too, yes, sir. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few senators. Now the other hand, my boy. That’s the ticket. So you never had this done before?”
“No,” said Brush. “The other town I was arrested in didn’t seem to care about it.”
“Probably they didn’t have the ay-paray-tus,” replied Bohardus, complacently knocking the glass table with his knuckles. “We give two thousand dollars for all this, and it’s a dandy.”
Brush earnestly examined the result. “That thumb’s not very clear, Mr. Bohardus,” he said. “I think I’d better do it over again.”
“No, that’s clear enough. You’ve got a fine thumb. See them spirals?”
“Yes.”
“They’re just about the finest spirals I ever saw. Some say they stand for character.”
“Do they?”
“That’s what they say. Now we’ll take your picture. Will you kindly put your head in this frame? . . . That’s the ticket. It’s funny about fingerprints,” continued Bohardus, placing a board of numerals against Brush’s chest. “Even if there were a trillion contrillion of them no two’d be alike.”
“Isn’t that wonderful!” replied Brush, his voice lowered in awe. Bohardus retired under a dark cloth. “Do you want me to smile now?” called Brush.
“No,” answered Bohardus, emerging and adjusting his lenses. “We don’t generally ask for a smile in this work.”
“I suppose you’ve seen lots of criminals in your day, Mr. Bohardus?”
“I? I certainly have. I’ve bertillioned people that have killed their folks and that have poisoned their wives and that have spat on the flag. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve seen. . . . Now we’ll get your side face, Mr. Brown. . . . That’s the ticket.” He came forward and turned Brush’s head. He took the occasion to ask, delicately, “May I inquire what they think you did, Mr. Brown?”
“I didn’t do anything. I just told a bank president that banks were immoral places and they arrested me.”
“You don’t say. . . . Chin up, Mr. Brown.”
“My name isn’t Brown. It’s Brush—George Brush.”
“Oh, I see. Well, what’s a name, anyway? . . . There, now I guess we got some good pictures.”
“Do you sell copies of these, Mr. Bohardus?”
“We’re not allowed to, I reckon. Leastways, there never was no great demand.”
“I was thinking I could buy some extra. I haven’t been taken for more than two years. I know my mother’d like some.”
Bohardus stared at him narrowly. “I don’t think it shows a good spirit to make fun of this work, Mr. Brown, and I can tell you I don’t like it. In fifteen years here nobody’s made fun of it, not even murderers haven’t.”
“Believe me, Mr. Bohardus,” said Brush, turning red, “I wasn’t making fun of anything. I knew you made good photos, and that’s all I thought about.”
Bohardus maintained an angry silence, and when Brush was led away refused to return his greeting. The chief of police, Mr. Southwick, and other dignitaries were in earnest conference when Brush was led into the warden’s office. At once he approached Mr. Southwick.
“I still don’t see what was wrong in the things I said. Mr. Southwick, I can’t apologize for a mistake I don’t understand. I can see that you might feel hurt because I haven’t a very high opinion of the banking business, but that’s not a thing you can put me in prison for, and it’s not a thing I can change my mind about, either. Anyway, all I ask is a fair trial and I think I can clear myself in half an hour. And I hope there are as many people in the courtroom as possible, because in these depression times a lot of people ought to know what Gandhi thinks of money.”
The chief of police came toward him threateningly. “Now stop this foolishness!” he said. “Stop it right now. What’s the matter with you, anyway?” He turned back to his men. “Jerry thinks this guy’s screwy. Perhaps we ought to take him up to Monktown for some tests. . . . How about it, young fella? What’s the matter with you, anyway? Are you nuts?”
“No, I’m not,” cried Brush, violently, “and I’m getting tired of this. You can see perfectly well I’m not crazy. Give me any old test you like—memory, dates, history, Bible. I’m an American citizen, and I’m of sound mind, and the next person that calls me crazy will have to answer for it, even if I am a pacifist. I told Mr. Southwick that his bank and every other bank is a shaky building of fear and cowardice. . . .”
“All right, dry up, pipe down,” said the chief. “Now looka here, Brush, if you aren’t out of this town in an hour you get the strait-jacket and a six-months’ sanity test upstate. Do you hear?”
“I’d like to take it,” said Brush, “but I can’t spare six months.”
“Gogarty,” said the chief, “see him to the depot.”
Gogarty was a tall man with a great bony jaw and pale blue eyes.
“Boy, are you coming along quiet?” asked Gogarty.
“Of course I’ll be quiet,” said Brush.
After they had gone a number of blocks in silence Gogarty stopped, turned, and putting one forefinger on Brush’s lapel, asked in a confidential tone:
“Say, boy, where did you get that idea about the Armina Savings Bank bein’ shaky? Who told yuh?”
“I didn’t mean that bank only. I meant all banks.”
This answer did not satisfy Gogarty. Lost in thought, he continued to peer over his spectacles into Brush’s face. Then he turned and stared up the street.
“Looks to me like there’s a lot of people at the door of that bank now,” he said. Suddenly he was roused to action. “Boy, you stick by me,” he said. He dashed into the house before which they were standing. A woman was washing the dishes. “Mrs. Cowles,” said Gogarty, severely, “as constable in this town I am obliged to use your telephone.”
“Why, certainly, Mr. Gogarty,” said Mrs. Cowles, nervously.
“And I’ll have to ask you, ma’am, to go out on the front porch while I’m talking here.”
Mrs. Cowles obeyed. When Gogarty had received a reply he said: “Mary, put on your hat. Do what I tell you. Go down and draw out all the savings, down to the last cent. And run. Only got half an hour. And don’t tell nobody what you’re doing.”
He left the house with Brush and allowed Mrs. Cowles to return to her work. He again peered up the street, and deciding that his duty lay there, trusted Brush to reach the railway station by himself.
Mr. Southwick went home and lay down in a darkened room. From time to time he moaned, whereupon his wife, moving about on tiptoe, would rise and change the damp cloths on his forehead, whispering: “Sh, Timothy dear! There’s nothing to worry about. You just take a nap. Sh!”